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Movie Review

Prospect (2018)

Director: Christopher Caldwell, Zeek Earl

Writer: Christopher Caldwell, Zeek Earl (Screenplay)

Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Jay Duplass, Pedro Pascal, Luke Pitzrick, Arthur Deranleau, Andre Royo, Alex McCauley

 

Plot: A teenage girl and her father travel to a remote alien moon, aiming to strike it rich. They’ve secured a contract to harvest a large deposit of the elusive gems hidden in the depths of the moon’s toxic forest. But there are others roving the wilderness and the job quickly devolves into a fight to survive. Forced to contend not only with the forest’s other ruthless inhabitants, but with her own father’s greed-addled judgment, the girl finds she must carve her own path to escape.


Tagline – No One Survives Alone

Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

 

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

 

Verdict: Slow Paced

 

Story: Prospect starts when a father Damon (Duplass) and his daughter Cee (Thatcher) are travelling through space, looking to make a big discovery, thrown off path they land on an alien moon, setting out to explore the area.

When the pair run into Ezra (Pascal) another prospector on the moon, things turn to deals with the tension amped up to see who will leave the moon with the treasure on the moon, or whether leaving is a better option and soon they will learn of the other dangers on the moon.

 

Thoughts on Prospect

 

Characters – Cee is the teenager girl that has been travelling through space with her father, she does want to make a place her home, always wondering if she can get home, she must work with her father and a stranger to survive her time on this latest moon, proving she is ready to step up to do the more difficult tasks in life. Damon is Cee’s father, he has been searching space for valuable treasures so he can get out of this desperate lifestyle, his greed is his biggest weakness. Ezra is a stranger that the two run into, he is after the same thing and must earn their trust to survive and trust them to get survive the threats the moon has to offer.

PerformancesSophie Thatcher as the teenager does everything she can in her role, she doesn’t get to shine on the levels she could, but this falls back into the writing, Jay Duplass really doesn’t get the time to make an impact in this film, while Pedro Pascal is the highlight of the acting, because he must carry large parts of the dialogue in the film.

StoryThe story follows a father and daughter prospector pairing that land on a new moon in search for their own richest only to find themselves in a battle to survive against rivals and the moon itself. This story is easily borrowing the idea of the early days of prospectors around the world, people that travelled great distances in hope of becoming rich, we get to see what is more important, riches or family, all in a position which has threats around every corner. The weakness of this story comes from the idea that moon is dangerous, though we only get environmental issues, with all the other problems being human, it would also have been nice to understand just how big the travelling is in this universe, we just casually follow on ship, is this one of the absolute poorest, is Earth uninhabitable now, there are so many questions about the universe we are entering that feel unanswered.

Sci-FiThe sci-fi side of the film does just seem to be the characters wearing helmets, we barely get anything that makes this as ambitious as it could be.

SettingsThe settings are beautiful though, the opening spaces, the closed woodland, yes it could easily be anywhere on Earth, but the visuals make this look like an alien moon in every shot.

Special EffectsThe effects are used to add environment to the moon, but outside of this for a space based movie, we get very little to work with.


Scene of the Movie –
First exploring of the moon.

That Moment That Annoyed Me It is very slow.

Final ThoughtsThis is one of the films that could have been a lot more interesting that we get, the pacing of the film does hold everything up and the fact we don’t learn more about the universe doesn’t help us understand just what is going on.

 

Overall: Keep searching for the treasure.

Rating